The twentieth century has been characterised as a century of
widespread democratic upsurge. The first half of the century witnessed the
overthrow of colonialism in Asia and Africa because of the liberation struggles.
The Indian freedom movement led by Mahatma Gandhi which used nonviolent direct
action satyagraha―as a technique of struggle, has won general acclaim for the
pioneering role it played in sharpening and hastening the process of dismantling
the classical forms of colonialism and imperialism. The next two decades
witnessed massive attempts at post colonial transformation in the newly
independent colonies initiated by the state. There has been a deeply
entrenched presumption that the state was an effective mediator in ameliorating
the conditions of the weaker and poorer sections of people, for the purpose of
ensuring social justice and equality, the liberator of the oppressed and "an
engine of growth and development that would usher in a new civil order based on
progress and prosperity and confer rights to life and liberty, equality and
dignity, on the people at large."1

The third decade of independence was period of disillusionment
and demystification. It becomes clear that expectations of the positive and
interventionist role of the state and the presumed alliance between the state
and the masses have been completely belied. As pointed out by Kothari; 'Today
the state is seen to have betrayed the masses, as having become the prisoner of
the dominate classes and their transnational patrons and as having increasingly
turned anti-people...The state in the third world, despite some valiant efforts
by dedicated leaders in a few countries, has degenerated into a technocratic
machine serving a narrow power group that is kept in power by hordes of security
men at the top and a regime of repression and terror at the bottom kept going by
millions of hardworking people who must go on producing goods and services for
the system, for if they did not, every thing would collapse''.2

This has evoked sharp response from the victims. They are being
organised and mobilised under the aegis of what are known as New Social
Movements / Action Groups / People Movements and these movements are engaging the
oppressors in violent and nonviolent struggles. These are movements of dalits,
tribals, women, displaced people, environmental movements, movements for
regional autonomy movements against globalization etc.

One can say without being seriously contested that the major
nonviolent/peaceful struggles of the post Gandhian period in India are organic
extensions of satyagraha campaigns carried out by Gandhiji in his anti-racial and
anti-colonial struggles in South Africa and India. In fact, there is hardly any
significant nonviolent struggle in any part of the world during the last fifty
years that does bear the impress and impact of Gandhian nonviolence in a
substantial way.

The anti-colonial struggle led by Gandhi for the liberation of
India was unique in many ways. That it was predominantly a nonviolent one has
been mentioned repeatedly. It is another aspect that I want to highlight here.
The Indian freedom movement was a multidimensional one. Gandhi did not limit it
to a single point agenda of putting an end to British rule in India. Of course,
ending foreign domination was an important and crucial item in the Gandhian
agenda. However, his goals were greater and more ambitious. What he wanted to
achieve was Swaraj―Poorna Swaraj or complete freedom.

A brief explanation of what Gandhi meant by swaraj is called for
here. Although the word swaraj means self-rule, Gandhi gave it the content
of an integral revolution that encompasses all spheres of life. "At the
individual level swaraj is vitally connected with the capacity for dispassionate
self-assessment, ceaseless self-purification and growing swadeshi or
self-reliance".3 Politically swaraj is self-government and not good government (for Gandhi, good government is no substitute for self-government) and it means
continuous effort to be independent of government control, whether it is foreign
government or whether it is national. In the other words, it is sovereignty of
the people based on pure moral authority. Economically, poorna swaraj means full
economic freedom for the toiling millions. For Gandhi, swaraj of the people
meant the sum total of the swaraj (self-rule) of individuals and so he clarified
that for him swaraj meant freedom for the meanest of his
countrymen. And in its fullest sense, swaraj is much more than freedom from all
restraints, it is self-rule, self-restraint and could be equated with moksha or salvation."4

How to realise swaraj also engaged Gandhiji's
attention seriously.
He reminded his colleagues that swaraj will not drop from the cloud and it would
be the fruit of patience, perseverance, ceaseless toil, courage and intelligent
appreciation of the environment.5 He also reminded them that swaraj means vast
organising ability, penetration into the villages solely for the services of the
villagers; in other words, it means national education i.e., education of the
masses.'6 And in the Gandhian discourse, education of the masses means conscientization, mobilisation and empowerment, making people capable and
determined to stand up to the powers that be. He said: "Real swaraj will
come, not by the acquisition of authority but by the acquisition of the capacity by
all to resist authority when it is abused. In other words, swaraj is to be
attained by educating the masses to a sense of their capacity to regulate and
control authority."7

Political independence was an essential precondition and the
first step towards the realisation of the goal of swaraj, but it was only a
first step. For political independence Gandhi worked with and through the Indian
National Congress, but there existed serious philosophical and ideological
differences between Gandhi and other prominent leaders of the Congress,
particularly Nehru. The development model visualised by Gandhi and enunciated in
the Hind Swaraj―known as Gandhi's manifesto―and the strategy he evolved
subsequently were totally unacceptable to Nehru and his Congress, Nehru
dismissed Hind Swaraj as "completely unreal" and declared that neither he nor
the Congress had ever considered the picture presented in it. However, to Gandhi
the vision presented in the Hind Swaraj was the ideal for the realisation of
which he had devoted his life fully. He wanted to rebuild India after the model
presented there. This required much more than ending British rule.

India was a subjugated nation. However, foreign domination was
not the only form of subjugation suffered by her. India was the victim of many
ills and evils of her own making for which no foreign power could be blamed.
Therefore, Gandhi wanted an internal cleansing chiefly through self-motivated
voluntary action in the form of constructive work. He, therefore, dovetailed
them into his movement for freedom, Swaraj of his dream was to be built from
below, brick by brick. It meant the elimination of all forms of
domination, oppression, segregation and discrimination through the use of active
nonviolence and a simultaneous economic regeneration of rural India through
programmers like the revival and propagation of khadi and other related villages
industries. For translating these constructive programmes into reality,
organisations were necessary. Congress was chiefly concerned with the question
of political independence and believed in mobilising the people politically for
it. It was not prepared to take up constructive work. Therefore, Gandhi founded
voluntary organisations to carry out his constructive program. The All
India Spinners Association (AISA) and All India Village Industries Association (AIVIA)
the Harijan Sewak Sangh, the Leprosy foundation etc., are examples. Through the instrumentality of these organisations, Gandhi
launched a massive programme of rural reconstruction and of empowering the
marginalised sections of people. As these organisations were primarily meant
for social transformation through voluntary action at the grassroots level,
their thrust was mainly social. However it does not mean that they were apolitical. On the contrary, they developed what later came to be labeled
peoples' politics and basic politics, which in turn helped in the consolidation
of lokshakti or peoples' power. Although constructive workers were barred from directly taking part in political struggles, on crucial occasions Gandhi
enlisted their services for political mobilisation. For example, the 79
volunteers who constituted the Dandi salt march team were all constructive
workers. When Gandhiji launched the Individual Satyagraha it was the most
prominent constructive worker Vinoba―whom he selected as the first Satyagrahi.
Gandhi visualised constructive work as a training programme for nonviolent
resisters or satyagrahies and advocated the extensive use of constructive
programme for preparing a favorable environment for launching satyagraha.
Therefore, the political thrust of the constructive programme shall not be lost
sight of.

In what is known as his Last Will and Testament Gandhi
suggested the disbanding of the congress organisation as a political forum and
its blossoming into a constructive work organisation―Lok Sewak Sangh was the
name he proposed―to conscientise and mobilise the people to work and struggle
for swaraj. Congressmen of the party-political disposition gave no heed to the
advice of the Mahatma. However, after Gandhi's assassination the constructive
workers, under the leadership of Vinoba Bhave, formed the Sarva Seva Sangh
at the national level and Sarvodya Mandals at the regional/state levels to carry on samagra grama seva―integrated village service―for realising the goal
of swaraj. Two major nonviolent movements for socio-economic and political
revolution in India viz. the Bhoodan-Gramdan Movement led by the Vinoba and the
Total Revolution movement led by Jayprakash Narayanan (JP) were actually held
under the aegis of the Sarvodaya Movement. On closer scrutiny it could be
seen that the constructive work organisations founded by Gandhi and the
Sarvodaya Mandals and Sarva Seva Sangh have actually served as precursors and
role models of peoples movement, Voluntary Organisations (V.O.s.) and some
of the Non-Government Organisations (N.G.O.s) that were subsequently launched in
various parts of India. As the similarities in their approach and praxis are
obvious, it is not necessary to elaborate on them.

Gandhi had very clear ideas about the role to be played by the
constructive work organisations and the proposed Lok Sevak Sangh in the
reconstruction of India. He made it clear that he would not hesitate to use
nonviolent direct action against the new government headed by Nehru, his chosen
heir. In his conversation with Louis Fischer, Gandhi made it unequivocally clear
that mass satyagraha will have to be launched also against the landlords for
persuading them to end their oppression and exploitation and that he was
mentally preparing himself for that historic struggle for justice.

Why did Gandhi take such a position vis-à-vis the state, the
capitalists and the landlords who were his supporters and the Indian National
Congress begs deeper probing. Although most of his prominent colleagues and
contemporaries pinned their vision of transformation of society and polity on
state power Gandhi cherished a deep-rooted suspicion of the state machinery. He defined the state
as the most organised and concentrated form of violence and called it an
impersonal entity, a soulless machine that satisfied individuality, which lay at
the root of all progress. The raison d'etre of the state is that it is an
instrument of serving the people. But Gandhi feared that in the name of moulding
the state into a suitable instrument of serving people, the state
would abrogate the rights of the citizens and arrogate to itself the role of
grand protector and demand abject acquiescence from them. This would create
a paradoxical situation where the citizens would be alienated from the state and
at the same time enslaved to it which according to Gandhi was demoralising and
dangerous. If Gandhi's close acquaintance with the working of the state
apparatus in South Africa and in India strengthened his suspicion of a
centralized, monolithic state, his intimate association with the congress and
its leaders confirmed his fears about the corrupting influence of political
power and his skepticism about the efficacy of the party systems of power
politics and his study of the British parliamentary systems convinced him of the
utter impotency of representative democracy of the Westminster model in meting
out justice to people. So he thought it necessary to evolve a mechanism to
achieve the twin objectives of empowering the people and empowering the state.
It was for this that he developed the two pronged strategy of resistance (to
the state) and reconstruction (through voluntary and participatory social
action).

Socio-political developments in the post-colonial world
corresponded with the Gandhian prognosis. The post-colonial Indian state
started showing signs of becoming authoritarian under the pretext of becoming an
adequate instrument of serving the people. Since erstwhile colonies had to
overcome their under- development (due to colonial exploitation) and develop in
order to "catch up with the west", post colonial societies were urged to give
their states enormous power in every domain. As Neera Chandhoke points out,
'development empowered the state in a way no other ideology could,
indeed development became ideology. Narrowly conceived in an economist fashion
development portrayed the state as an impersonal vehicle of social change. As
the post colonial elite who were captains of the state believed that
development was the imperative of the time and considered it to be a value free
social process, they ignored the crucial fact that such an approach would
breed its own patterns of domination and social oppression'.8 This became clear
in less than two decades after independence. As pointed out in the beginning the
hope of postcolonial transformation in which the state was assigned a pivotal
role was completely belied. The state was made visibly pro-elitist, catering to
the needs of the rich and the powerful. With the beginning of the last decade of
the century, the post colonial states began openly collaborating with
Trans-National and Multi-National Corporations and Companies compromising even
the sovereignty of the nation state and exposing the weaker sections of the
people to stark exploitation. New forms of Western domination are being
facilitated by the market. In short, the very conception of the state as an
instrument of human liberation and social transformation is to be doubted and
contested. Not only the state but active mediators of the political process
namely the political parties also have alienated themselves from the people and
forfeited their credibility. It is not necessary to argue so hard to show that
all these trends correspond to the Gandhian prognosis.

In this paradoxical situation, the victims of oppression are
compelled to fall back on the legacy of the anti-colonial struggle that
challenged the authoritarian conception of the state and political power. The
anti-colonial struggles had opened up the streams of democratic consciousness
that gave the people not only a sense of their fundamental and inalienable
rights but also confidence in their capability to challenge and throw
anti-people regimes, through peaceful means. Another dimension of the
anti-colonial struggle was that it gave the people the vision of an ideal social
order that is free from exploitation, segregation and domination and also the
hope that they can, through corporate effort, translate this vision into reality.
All these have boiled down to a new determination among the masses―particularly the oppressed and the marginalised and the displaced―on the one
hand to resist all forms of oppressive structures including the state, and on
the other to strive for a more humane, participatory, just and sustainable social
order. The socio-political turbulence and upheavals that we witness today are
manifestations of this new determination.

As pointed out by Harsh Sethi,9 the Action Groups/Peoples Movements that are spearheading this campaign size organization and
operation, it is well-nigh impossible to put them under a single rubric.
Most of these groups are composed mainly of sensitised and radicalised middle
class youth working with and for the oppressed and exploited strata with a
vision to transform society. Another commentator has identified three major
groups of actors in Peoples Movements―Gandhians, radical Christians and
freelance Marxist intellectuals.10

Typology and Issues

1. Struggles for gender Justice―fighting structural and cultural
oppression―resisting harassment of women and girl children through direct
action and legal measures. Many women's action groups are involved.

2. Struggles of the Dalits―fighting structural and socio-cultural oppressions―most action groups are Ambedkarites―very active in
Karnataka and Maharashtra―most of them not committed to nonviolence. Demand
socio-economic justice and equality.

3. Struggles of the Tribals―the worst hit victims of major
development projects of India like big dams, mines and collieries, thermal power
stations, etc. demand the right to live in their natural and traditional habitats and
control and use their natural resources―also demand Tribal self-government in
their scheduled areas―many action groups are active.

4. Ecological Struggles―probably the most popular and widespread are
environmental struggles―demand an end to pollution, environmental
degradation, over-exploitation of natural resources, and non-renewable sources
of energy―pose the issues of sustainable development and alternative life
styles. NBA, the most popular movement today.

5. Human Rights/Civil Rights Struggles―expose and resist the authoritarian
acts of the state and other powerful social forces and vested interests―seek
mainly legal redressal. People's Union for Civil Liberties.

6.Anti-Nuclear Campaigns and Struggles―resist the establishment of atomic
power plants―the attempt to establish nuclear reactors were defeated twice in Kerala―and the escalation of nuclear weapons and other weapons like
missiles―the Baliapal Struggle.

7. Struggles against the liquor, drug
menace―demand legal ban on the
manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol, drugs and other
intoxicants―chiefly under the aegis of All India Prohibition Council and
State
Prohibition Councils―also led by citizens and
Women's Action Groups―prohibition was an item in Gandhi's Constructive Programme.

8. Struggles for land redistribution―mobilising landless agricultural
labourers and tillers and other landless sections and offering satyagraha
against the state and landlords and certain institutions that are monopoly
holders of land―capture and occupation of land―the
campaigns led by Shri Jagannathan, a senior Sarvodaya leader in Tamil Nadu―also similar struggles in Bihar.

9. Struggles for Gramswaraj―an ongoing campaign for realising village-self-sufficiency and autonomy through struggles and constructive activities―led
by Sarva Seva Sangh.

10. Struggles against Commercial Tourism―expose the evil designs of corporate capitalism in promoting tourism as an
industry leading to cultural pollution, carnivalisation of religious festivals, child prostitution and large
scale environmental destruction―active in states like Goa and Kerala.

11. Struggles to reverse globalisation―these struggles are for
community control of natural resources and protection of bio-diversity as against
corporate control―the farmer's struggles for protecting indigenous seed
varieties and their fight against the terminator seed also come under this.

A General Assessment

As already mentioned these struggles are held around
a variety of issues
that are different but inter connected. The theatres of struggles are also
equally varied. The actors are disparate and sometimes even conflicting. At a
glance, they appear almost kaleidoscopic. But there are certain characteristics
that stand out. The most predominant, I suppose is the convergence and alliance
of actors in each struggle. Most of these struggles are localised and
single-issue based and take place in remote and inaccessible places. Therefore
during the early years of these struggles, as the issues were not properly
reported in the media, the action groups found it difficult to hold on against
their adversaries who were formidable. But as a result of organised and
concerted effort the situation changed gradually. As the action groups could
succeed in publicising the seriousness of the problem and the consequences
thereof, most of the theatres of struggle now attract a chain of actors. At the
base are, of course, the direct and immediate victims, but on these converge
people from media, professionals like researchers, technologists, doctors,
professors, and human rights activists including lawyers and also writers and
theatre artistes, and students from different levels.11 Some of the struggles have
attracted support even from overseas.

This kind of convergence of concerned and sensitised people drawn from
different walks of life and various areas of specialisation has helped those at
the base line of the action to acquire factually accurate data and argue their
case more scientifically and convincingly. It has also created a new sense of
solidarity and fraternity reminiscent of the days of the historic anti-colonial struggle. Recently when a selected team of satyagrahies of the N.B.A.
decided to do jail samarpan, i.e. offering themselves as sacrifice in the rising
waters of the river Narmada and refused to leave their post,, many sympathisers,
drawn from various parts of the country, offered to drown with the satyagrahies. And they remained with them in neck deep waters braving the risk
of being washed away by the state-created flood. This is one of the rarest
demonstrations of solidarity that can be read as a very reassuring sign of
hope by all those who stand and struggle for the greater common good.

Alliance building within the theatre of a struggle is not without problems.
Harsh Sethi, for example, points out that as a result of the intervention of
professionals from outside real issues tend to get clouded and there is
even the chance of it moving away from the central question of power. He has
also hinted at a cognitive handicap likely to arise out of an interface of two
contradictory worldviews, that of communities rooted in nature and that of the
urban middle class professionals. Sethi feared a distortion and downgrading of
traditional wisdom and folk knowledge.12 However, later developments show that
such well meaning criticisms and the warning implied therein were received very
positively. Collaboration was carefully developed into an alliance, which proved transformatory for both sets of actors. Both became self-conscious in a positive
sense, accepting one's limitations and never trying to exchange roles. The
professionals worked with commendable restraint, and they have openly
acknowledged the great transformatory education they received from the
experience of being with traditional communities. Needless to say that this has
helped considerably in strengthening the struggles.

Almost at the struggles are localised. However, the issues involved are
non-local and sometimes they are of global significance. Therefore, there arises
the need to transcend localism while remaining local. For resolving most of the
issues, wider support becomes essential because the issues are complex and the
opponents formidable. The message of an ancient axiom―united we stand, divided
we fall―has become clearer than before to the Action Groups. So alliance
building between Peoples Movements has become an imperative need of the times
and to fulfill this need the National Alliance of People's Movements has been
formed. The N.A.P.M. is a co-ordination of such people oriented organisations,
parties, movements, institutes and individuals that are working towards
alternative development paradigm based on equality, justice and peace, and
striving to evolve a sustainable society.13 Within three years of its inception
the N.A.P.M. has succeeded in getting a large number of Peoples Movements
affiliated to it and has made its presence felt in the overall scenario of
peoples struggles in India. It appears that in the years to come it is going to
play a pivotal role in the consolidation of people's Movements and struggles in
this country.

One of the important results achieved by the struggles is that they succeeded
in initiating a serious dialogue and discussion within and among the Action
Groups and Peoples Movements on an alternative development paradigm. This has
helped the Action Groups in placing the whole gamut of struggles in perspective
and in evolving a consensus on what is meant by sustainable development―the
values that underlie it, the components that constitute it and the
methodology that would translate it into practice. The dialogue on an alternative development model has thus narrowed
down the ideological distance between movements. It has also emphasised the need
to evolve an alternative politics. Discussions on various aspects of the
emerging peoples' politics which is distinguished from party politics, are
galore in People's Movements, though nothing concrete, capable of making a dent
nationally, has emerged yet . But a fundamental and crucial political question
hitherto ignored or marginalised by mainstream political parties and political
commentators have been pushed into the vortex of contemporary political
discourse by the Movements.

An important trend that has started emerging with the struggles that attempt
to resist and reverse globalisation is the importance given to constructive
activities. Action Groups that were oriented primarily to agitation and were
engaged in mobilising people only for struggle, have effected a change in their
orientation by incorporating constructive work also into their praxis. There was
a time when interest in and insistence on constructive work was brushed
aside as a Gandhian fad, but now, the number of Movements and Groups that assign
a key role to the building up of models of alternative enterprises and
structures, are on the increase as they have understood the substantive and
strategic significance of these programmes.

The role of nonviolence in these struggles is of course a moot question. As
already mentioned, while some movements and groups have openly expressed their
disapproval of nonviolence as a method of struggle, others have emphasised the
need to give up violence and resort to peaceful means. Although these groups do
not adhere to Gandhi's position on nonviolence, i.e., accepting nonviolence as
an article of faith and making it the central organising principle of life, they
are convinced more than ever before that nonviolence has to be accepted as an
ideal if a just social order is to be translated into reality. For them, justice
is an essential value and they know that violence in any form and in any degree
amounts to a denial of justice. Therefore, they emphasise peace, taking peace
as one form and manifestation of nonviolence. It is really indicative of an
emerging trend among Action Groups of giving up violent methods and gradually
moving towards nonviolence. Some organisations claim to be nonviolent. However,
a critical observer is constrained to point out that theirs is not the
nonviolence of the brave visualised and demonstrated by Gandhi, but nonviolence
of the weak. Most of the 'satyagrahas' that we see today are only passive
resistance and not real satyagraha as conceived by Gandhi. It
will be relevant to recall that J.P. described the movement for total
revolutions as "peaceful" and not "nonviolent" . But it serves as a sign of
hope that more and more action groups are renouncing violence, being convinced
about its utter futility and accepting peace and nonviolence as key values.
Probably they have come to the realisation with Martin Luther King Jr. that the
choice before humanity today is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and non-existence.

People's Movements and their struggles have been mainly located in civil
society by social scientists.14 Civil society has been advanced to provide the
conceptual frame work to comprehend and evaluate people struggles. It has been
pointed out that these struggles are to be seen as part of an attempt to create
an authentic civil society in which the values of freedom and equality can be
experienced by all its members. But as Neera Chandhoke argues, the civil
society constructed by the post colonial state is a constrictive and exclusive
arena.... a peaceable arena.... in which any one who confronts the state is a
political offender and can be banished outside the pale of society...it is neutralised civil society that is stripped of its potential to engage with the
state. Thus in fact, the concept of civil society does not provide an adequate
conceptual apparatus to locate peoples struggles.15 Manoranjan Mohanty introduces
the concept of 'creative society' to situate peoples' struggles and here
'creative society' refers to a phase of development of a society in which a
large number of political contradictions become articulate and active and
oppressed people get politically mobilised and demand their rights.16

A closer and critical look at Gandhi's concept of swaraj will show that it
can provide a more adequate conceptual apparatus to locate and assess the
struggles of the oppressed peoples. As pointed out earlier Gandhi's concept of swaraj is
a comprehensive one and encapsulates the individual human person and
life in a holistic framework. It visualises the progressive liberation of all
from all oppressive structures and therefore can be equated with salvation. If
we examine the vision of the new world order―the heaven freedom―conceived and
formulated by the ideologues of the peoples struggles, it would become
unambiguously clear that nothing less than a concept as comprehensive and
holistic as Swaraj will be necessary to locate it properly. That is why I
look upon these struggles as peoples' pursuit of the
ideal of swaraj and situate them in the Gandhian legacy.

Notes and References:

1. Rajni Kothari,"Masses Classes and
the state " in New Social Movements in the South Empowering the people, ed. Ponna Wignaraja, Visataar Publications, New Delhi, 1993, p. 61.

9. Harsh Sethi , "Survival of
Democracy : Ecological Struggles in India" in New Social Movements in the South, Empowering the people,
op. cit. See also his article, "Action Groups in New Delhi 1998, p.32.

10. Somen Chakraborty, A Critique of social Movements in India, Indian Social
Institute, New Delhi 1999.